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The battle for Phillips Petroleum turned into a bruising and emotional struggle. When Pickens tried to buy it late last year, the company, which produces Phillips 66 gasoline, responded with a barrage of suits. Phillips also had the entire headquarters town of Bartlesville on its side. Local churches held 24-hour prayer vigils to drive off Pickens, and BOONE BUSTERS T shirts sprouted everywhere. At a public meeting, nearly 4,000 people belted out an anti-Pickens song (chorus: "There's gonna be a meeting at the old town hall tonight/ And if they try to stop us, there's gonna be a fight./ We're gonna get our company out of this awful fix,/ 'Cause we don't want to change our name to Pickens 66").
The Battle of Bartlesville wounded Pickens with the arbitragers. He bid $60 a share for Phillips stock and then agreed to be bought out for about $53 a share. That resulted in their losing some $100 million, since they had expected to be able to sell the stock at the higher price. The episode could hurt Pickens in the future if jittery Wall Street investors decide not to join his campaigns.
In his Unocal move, Pickens lined up $1.2 billion in credit and began quietly acquiring stock last October. From then until mid-February, he paid nearly $600 million for 13.8 million shares, pushing the stock's price from about $36 to $48. Returning to Amarillo on Feb. 14 aboard his company's ten-passenger Falcon 50 jet after a business trip to New York City, Pickens phoned Mesa's headquarters to find out whether it had sent word of the purchases to the New York Stock Exchange, as planned. When he found that the announcement had gone, Pickens jubilantly turned to a passenger and announced: "Well, it's public knowledge now. We're the biggest shareholders in Unocal." The master takeover tactician combines down-home shrewdness with boardroom savvy. While his talk is rich in good-ole-boy phrases like "that dog won't hunt" or "it's better than a poke in the eye with a stick," Pickens is every inch the businessman. In place of the pointed boots and Stetson hats that many independent oilmen wear, he favors sober gray suits, button-down shirts and striped ties. He rarely smiles, but when he does, the grin spreads slowly, almost reluctantly, across his face. Says a friend: "He deals with everyone, from Senators to bank presidents, as if he's telling them fishing stories." Yet he can be flint hard. Told of a worker who had been laid off after having given 30 years to his company, Pickens snapped, "Given? Didn't he get paid?"
Pickens has remained a disciplined athlete since college. An avid golfer with a handicap of twelve, he is a light eater who prefers cereal and fresh fruit for breakfast and likes to munch on Granny Smith apples during the day. Aides set out raw carrots as snacks during company meetings. He does not smoke, and he offers employees $6-a-month bonuses to give up the habit. IF YOU MUST SMOKE, reads an embroidered cushion in Mesa's corporate jet, PLEASE STEP OUTSIDE. But he is not averse to an occasional Scotch and soda at the end of the day, nor can he stop gobbling handfuls of nuts whenever they are within reach.